


Bad Dream

by backtofive, LadyOfTheMist27



Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Androids, Angst, Far Future, M/M, Romance, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:29:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5478221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backtofive/pseuds/backtofive, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfTheMist27/pseuds/LadyOfTheMist27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If only this had all been nightmares and shadows. But we are adults, and the comforts of children are behind us.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Lady: What's this? A collab?! Yup, this is a project me and backtofive collaborated together on, I hope you all enjoy! It's also definitely the longest oneshot I've ever written. Kudos to backtofive for the original plot idea!
> 
> Nathy: Thank you sooooo much Lady for dive into this plot with me even being so busy! It was a pleasure to work with you and I hope to collab with you and other talented authors in the future!!!

To an ordinary citizen of NeoTokyo, The Piles, as it had laughingly been dubbed somewhere along its hulking lifespan, meant nothing. They were huge mounds of nothing but trash, abandoned in the ghettos on the outskirts of NeoTokyo, a far call from the sleek white heart of the city, all maglevs and holographs, a physical reminder that  _this_ was where the scum of humanity lived. They wouldn’t spare it a glance, except to perhaps wrinkle their noses at the unsightly blip on the skyline. It was far removed from their ordinary, peaceful lives.

But Asami Ryuichi knew full well how valuable The Piles could be. You could find a lot of things in The Piles. Scrap metal, gears, broken technology....along with other, more useful things. Sifting through the area that covered several acres was no easy task, but was well worth the trouble.

What was seen as useless trash to the higher-class technicians, the ones who lived and worked in fancy laboratories with glass walls, his own workers could use and repurpose with ease, working in their ill-illuminated warehouses. Illegal robots and androids, shipped out without all the irritating safeguards and "moral standards" that Cortex installed in their public use models. Perfect little whores, churned out one after another, with no inhibitions and perfect human emotion replication software. Whores who rich, filthy men would shell out insane amounts of cash for. They sold almost as well as the drugs, and the police cared far less about them.

He smirked, taking a long drag of his Dunhill. Below him, many men diligently dug through the piles of trash, searching for the valuable parts. Abruptly, a scream rang out as a man stumbled back from an area. “Suoh.”

With a nod, the man took off to inspect the area. Asami and Kirishima followed at a slower pace.

Metal and silicon crunched under their feet as they trudged through the area. The entire place reeked of gasoline, a fuel from an extinct period of time, but always a potent reminder of where their civilization had risen from. “What is it?”

“A-a body sir! I think it’s a dead boy!” The man who had been digging gasped out. He must be a newbie; only they would be so shocked or horrified at a finding a body.

“Oh?” Well _that_ was rare. Not because murder was rare, mind you, but few modern criminals would have so little finesse as to leave the body whole and in some trash heap. “Show me.”

“He’s wrong sir.” Suoh was crouched at the site already. “It’s an android.”

Walking around, Asami stood behind Suoh, looking down at the side of the pile. In an area where the man must’ve been brushing away debris, three quarters of a face were revealed. An eye was closed peacefully, and full lips pouted, still pink. His face held just a trace of mischief, set in his eyebrows and the tilt of his mouth. It looked for all the world as if a body had been embedded into the pile of silicon and steel. But as Suoh brushed away the rest of the debris, unveiling his body, his true nature became clear at once. His left eye, unlike the right, bore no resemblance to a human’s. Instead, a glassy black orb was set in a shining socket of metal. His shoulders and knees were similarly mechanical, black shining metal revealing joints that had not been oiled in a long time. An android, through and through.

Yet…he was beautiful. Mechanical parts and all, he looked to be an angel, reclining peacefully in sleep. Any second now, those eyes could snap open and that tiny, perfect hand could flex. “An extraordinarily well-made android.” Kirishima murmured, examining the boy. “But an old, _old_ model. Look at its serial number!”

On the base of his tiny, white foot, etched into the ‘skin’ was a perfect little “5”, and underneath that a stylized C, the universal symbol of Cortex. The fifth model that Cortex had ever made? _Ever?_

Suoh gave a low whistle. “Man, this thing could be an antique. Amazing how well it’s doing after around a century, really.”

“Get Arata over here.” His head engineer would be required if this model was really as old as its number claimed.

Moments later, he could hear the curious sound of the man’s shuffling gait. Arata walked over, assisted by his cane. “Yes, Asami-sama?”

“Can you repair this?” Asami gestured at the boy.

With a flick, Arata set a magnifying lens over his own eye, leaning in to inspect the goods. “I could, I think. It’s an old model, I can tell, but the mechanics of this sort of thing haven’t changed much over the past hundred years. But…” He hesitated, brow furrowing.

“But what?” Asami’s eyes narrowed.

“It would be expensive sir. Despite how it looks on the outside, I’m willing to bet that every one of those limbs is useless now. It would hardly be turning a profit.” Arata reached down to pick up one hand, testing it by bending the fingers this way and that, and shook his head. “Yes, all the limbs will definitely have to be replaced and recalibrated.”

“I don’t intend to sell it.” He had seen a lot of beautiful robots, but somehow…this one he wanted to keep. Its beauty wasn’t the cold kind he saw in other robots, it seemed almost _warm_. And that fascinated Asami. “Fix it; money is no issue, I simply want it for personal use.”

“Very well sir, I should be able to have it done in a week.” Arata’s face lit up at the challenge. “I do confess, I’ve always wondered how the early Cortex models worked.”

Asami simply smiled and caressed the android’s blond hair. “Good. I’ll be at your lab in a week. I expect for him to be awake and functioning.”

* * *

 The warehouse was an eerie sight for anyone who had never been inside before. Androids, hung by their backs, lined the walls. They were empty shells, awaiting their memory chips and software, their faces and their hair. For now, they were mere fetuses to their future selves, unborn and clean.

Today, however, the warehouse had a centerpiece. The old android was laid on a table, various wires hooked up to it. It was perfect now, unblemished with none of its mechanical parts showing, unlike that first time Asami had seen it. “Was it difficult to repair?” He asked Arata, walking up to where the man stood, clacking away on his computer.

“Oh, no, the limbs were as easy as they come!” Arata said, gesturing to the boy’s hands and feet. “I had to resize some, but really that’s just tweaking. My suspicions were right; the basic wiring system hasn’t changed terribly much at all. However, the main control system is…difficult.” His lips pursed.

“Difficult? How so?” Asami looked at him in concern.

“It’s easier to show rather than explain.” The man walked over to the center table. With a click of a button, there was a tiny popping sound and the front of the boy’s torso was lifted away easily. Inside, Asami could see wires and chips, tiny flashing lights, all so complex he could never hope to comprehend it. “See this?” Arata pointed at the dead center of the chest, towards a small box.

“Yes, what’s so special about it?”

“It seems to be the central hub to all of this, the main wires and motherboard are all connected to it.” Arata explained. “But there’s no way to open it, and forcing it might break it. I figured you wouldn’t want me cracking his personality chip.”

“I suppose it’ll have to remain a mystery then.” Asami acknowledged, examining the tiny black box carefully. “Have you fired him up yet?”

“No, I’ve activated various limbs to make sure calibration was accurate, but his central base hasn’t been awakened yet. Shall I turn him on?” Arata fixed back on his torso with ease, allowing it to click into place seamlessly.

“Yes.” Asami nodded, eyes focused intensely on the boy’s face. It looked so very human now, eyes repaired and flawless.

“Commencing program activation…he’ll wake up any second now.”

As if by magic, slowly the chest began to rise and fall, mimicking human breath. Fingers twitched and eyelids squinched shut before snapping open. What lay behind him them stole Asami’s breathe away.

Because those stunning eyes blazed with _life_.

* * *

 “They say that one day, you won’t be able to tell apart a human and an android, you know.” Kou had said that day, so long ago in an old memory. Perhaps the oldest memory that Takaba Akihito could still recall clearly. It had been a scene splashed with the vivid colors of summer, the blue and white of the stripes of Takato's shirt and the black baseball cap, turned back on Kou’s head, all contrasting to the lush greenery behind them and the sunlight that cut down like hard gold on their backs. Their faces were, however, long lost to time, unlike the colors around them.

“Don’t be stupid, Kou.” Akihito answered, trying to balance himself while walking tiptoe on the edge of the curb of the sidewalk. “You can’t actually believe in that. Cortex is selling lies. They only say they will make such great androids so that people will invest in their stock shares, it’s all just hot air.”

“My dad hates them; he says they don’t value human life and that the androids give him the chills.” Takato said, licking the remains of his strawberry ice cream. The afternoon heat was punishing around them and the buzz of cicadas formed the familiar rhythm of summer.

Akihito didn’t believe in any of that, nor the stories about Cortex using human lives to make their androids more realistic than the other companies. Those were just stories that older siblings used to tell to scare the younger ones, the bogey man of the modern era “Don’t be naughty, Cortex is gonna take you away”, they would say to gullible children.

He had seen an ad on the internet offering big money only to serve as a guinea pig in some bio-tech experiment. Akihito wasn’t afraid that he would ‘turned into a robot’ as the urban legends said. Fear mongering never appealed to him terribly much anyways. He wasn’t a kid anymore…and he needed money.

The annual ball their school held was in two weeks and though at first he had no hope in finding himself a partner, that didn’t mean he was going to dress shabby. Not if _that boy_ was going to be there. Kou and Takato said they were going together and he started to suspect that those two were way too friendly to be _just_ friends, but hey, he wasn’t one to pry. Therefore, he wasn’t going to get in their way and be a third wheel.

He would probably remember that particular moment later, tossed among other memories. His brain was bad at organizing experiences chronologically; it seemed to just toss them out randomly, mixing them up like vibrant pieces of a puzzle that he had to rebuild every time. But he would always remember, nonetheless. He would recall the way his blue eyes always found that warm golden gaze on him whenever he was running around the field in PE, or eating with his friends at cafeteria. He would always remember that sinful smirk that made his knees feel like jelly and his heart pump faster. Somehow, that heady sensation could never be forgotten.

He was going to remember forever that other day. Thoughts on artificial life and tech companies with bad morals were far away from his innocent mind, and seemed unimportant at that time in the prime of his youth.

He had been trying to reach out for a dusty, thick book in a particularly difficult shelf. He no longer remembered what it was about or why he needed it, unimportant details his mind had pruned away. His sweet blue eyes had looked up and even though he was on his tiptoes, the book seemed impossibly distant. Unfair really, how tall those shelves were. Obviously built without a care for the short statured. Then a big hand reached above him snagging book with ease. Akihito had turned to thank the male when he noticed it was none other than the golden eyed boy. He stepped back in shock, and then gave a squeak of pain when his back hit the bookcase. God, he was such klutz, how embarrassing.

The taller boy smiled and handed him the book. He read the cover out loud, making Akihito give a shiver at the sound of his rich, rolling voice. “The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession,” He flashed a smile, “Hm, why do you suppose I find this to be so relatable?” His eyes made it _very_ clear why he found it relatable.

Akihito couldn’t bring himself to answer.

“Takaba-kun?” The teasing smile dropped from those lips as he bent to survey the boy.

“T-Thank you!” He turned his back, readying himself to leave. He hadn’t intended to be rude, really…it was just this damned shyness that crept up.

“Don’t leave.” The taller boy’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

Akihito didn’t turn, instead choosing to shrink in on himself, red cheeks burning and blond bangs covering his eyes. His heart was pumping so hard he could barely hear the other teenager’s deep voice.

“I know you’re such a shy one, kitten. If I asked you out, you wouldn’t answer me, would you?” He chuckled when he heard a quiet gasp. “So I am not bringing anyone to the ball… I just hope to find you there…and then we can talk and dance… so don’t leave me again, okay?” His voice caressed Akihito softly, wrapping around him like warm velvet.

Akihito blushed even harder and nodded, glancing at him under his bangs just before he almost sprinting out the library without even registering the book with the front desk.

He was in love with the most perfect guy at school and though he had felt some sort of interest from the other party, he had never, ever imagined, not even in his ditzy daydreams, that he would be invited to the ball. And yet, he just had. That golden-eyed boy, with his trademark smirk, had actually _asked him out_.

But what would he wear to the ball? He had already had vague plans before to dress well in order to look presentable, but this invitation kicked it to a new level. He needed money, lots of it, and he sure as hell didn’t want to burden his parents with his own teenage vanity. _That ad…_ Cortex was searching up and down for more human subjects. It would be so easy, and the money was far better than any of his other options. Of course they weren’t going to hurt him, there was no way you could make a person become a machine, right? Even the thought was stupid.

* * *

 Cortex headquarters was everything he had ever imagined, and more. Everything bespoke of modernism, from the minimalist architecture to the receptionists, their hair pulled back immaculately and their lips painted bright red. Everything was perfect and sterile, representative of the image Cortex clearly wanted to project. From the glass walls of the higher up floors, he could see scientists and engineers at work. In one of the rooms, an android strode forward, its stride mimicking a human’s so closely it was profoundly disturbing to see its metal joints and wires.

The scientists were all elderly men, it seemed, dressed in their white lab coats and always wielding a clipboard upon which they jotted notes. Over the course of two hours, they drew his blood samples, saying something about “standard procedure”, and then barraged him with constant tests. He had to match colors and shapes, work on word association, and answer a series of questions ranging from “What is 2 plus 2?” to “On a scale from 1 to 10, how afraid are you of death?”. Every part of his body was photographed, and any past injuries carefully examined. He was picked apart, exposed. Those cold eyes that examined only saw him as parts, taking no time to notice the whole. He was just a collection of data, to be examined closely and then sent on his way as the next one rolled in. It was a disconcerting, vaguely chilling experience. Finally, they gave him a single, bright yellow pill to swallow, reassuring him it was quite safe, tested upon mice time and time again.

He’d have to come back for one last appointment, a follow-up in which they would examine his body for any adverse effects. And then he was sent on his way with money in hand.

* * *

 Akihito felt a warm touch on his lower back and leaned into the warm, heavy hand that guided him. Shyly he murmured the taller boy’s name wondering if this was a dream or a cruel prank. But did it really matter? Here and now, everything was perfect, and he reveled in it.  

“Come, I want to show you something…” The other boy gave him an inviting smile.

He accepted his partner’s arm playfully and accompanied him to the balcony. But…after that things changed. Abruptly, the perspective shifted. He was no longer the Akihito of the past, but the Akihito of now, looking upon that night so long ago. The images played as a short movie in his head, a reel of film, almost crackling with old age. His metaphorical prince smiled at the moon and, in a playful joke, compared Akihito’s beauty to the moon.

Akihito quoted Shakespeare and both of them laughed.

It would’ve been easier to not seem a fool and probably more interesting if he had pretended that this wasn't the guy he had loved since elementary school. He never felt ready to be object of the boy’s attention; it made him so damn nervous.

“Akihito…” The serious voice made Aki shiver and melt at the same time. His heart was beating so hard that it was hard to breath. Abruptly the slight chill of the night air seemed to vanish.

“I meant to tell you something…for a long time. I waited for you to get used to me…and I waited so much to talk to you because….”

Because he was such a stupid coward.

“…because you are so shy. I didn’t want to scare you.” The boy spoke so politely, none of his characteristic arrogance in sight. It seemed even a king lost his crown for occasions like this.

And yet he could only stare firmly down, like the awkward brat he was.

“But seeing you everyday…growing beautifully…I don’t want to wait anymore.”

The world was spinning and Akihito felt faint. What if he wasn’t good enough, what if his crush would find him way too awkward and inexperienced? The fears plagued him, encircled him and strangled his budding joy.

“Can I kiss you?” The golden eyed boy asked him softly.

He couldn’t. Akihito was too insecure, nervous and afraid to let it happen. He didn’t want to ruin everything, he had never kissed anybody. It was all going so fast, he felt it was all he could do to not faint. _I can’t make a fool of myself._

Hesitating, Akihito stepped back. The other boy stiffened in shock, and he almost cringed in shame. This was somehow everything he had wanted…and yet he wasn’t ready. “I’m sorry…” Bittersweet tears were rolling down his cheeks. “I want to…” He turned around and started running.

The taller boy followed him frantically, his words ringing in Akihito’s ears, echoing. They would echo in Akihito’s for many, many years to come. “Don’t leave! You promised to not leave me!”

That night, Akihito hated himself, the coward and brat inside. It was a final stain on the brightest chapter of his life, before he lost his family, friends, and love forevermore.

* * *

 While Takaba Akihito hesitated to go back to the ball and let his crush kiss him and promise to not leave him ever again, a pair of far more dangerous eyes surveyed him, preparing to remove the last obstacle between him and success.

The boy would be a perfect Adam. He would die, and be reborn into his new body. And death was a paltry price to pay for such a great gift. The gift of being a pioneer in such a momentous revolution in the world of technology.

In his mind’s eye he could already picture his vast collection of pictures of the boy, not the only the ones he was using match the boy’s new form to his old seamlessly, but even the ones he used to make his nights interesting. And no one had to know how he had obsessively pored over Akihito’s files, every single one, to garner as much as he could about the boy with his meager resources. If he had more time, he could’ve looked more closely, found out more ways to obtain information and data. But time was of the essence and genius waited for none.

His love, his overwhelming desire to see his perfect boy, reborn within a perfect body per his ultimate invention invaded his mind, his every living second as he made his plans. He would create the “skin” with a layout scheme mimicking the human nervous system, but infinitely more refined than what several thousand years of trudging evolution could bring. It would link every sensation, every twitch, to the central unit – the boy’s precious brain. “Adam” was going to feel every touch within his new, improved body. And _he_ would reap the rewards for perfecting the process.

He almost drooled as he watched the boy start to cry through the car window. Akihito looked even prettier with that sweet and helpless expression. In the confines of his pants, his cock twitched. He would be sure to make the boy express every feeling with his artificial countenance. He would cry and laugh…he would be a human in every visual detail.

The ideal prototype.

* * *

 Akihito had met a lot of creeps and weirdos in his life, but Maeda-sensei was a new low. The doctor puttered around him, acting as if his disgusting fingers didn’t linger on Akihito’s flesh, barely covered with a thin hospital gown. Occasionally Aki could hear him inhale deeply, and cringed. A constant barrage of half-broken phrases flooded from his mouth, though the other doctors assured him that Maeda was simply eccentric due to his utter brilliance as a pioneer of this field. “This is the perfect… perfect model… the proportions....my prototype …”

“Maeda sensei…” He said through gritted teeth. _Stay calm, you’ve already been paid, punching a creep is_ not _worth owing them money…_

“Here, Aki-chan.” The cutesy way the man addressed him sent shivers up his spine. This was disgusting; he wanted to go home. Now. And probably take a long shower to scrub away the sensation of this pig’s prying hands. The man shoved a clipboard on his hands. Crisp white paper, around ten pages total were all neatly clipped onto it, all printed with tiny letters. “If you sign there, we can skip half of these boring tests.” Maeda-sensei muttered, again way too close, his right hand on Akihito’s knee. He didn’t read a thing. Rushing, he signed the papers without a second thought; he just wanted to go home. Far away from that pervert.

“Here.” Akihito said offering the clipboard back. “I just signed, can I go home now?”

“Oh, no. I am sorry, I am afraid that we’ll need some more samples…” Maeda-sensei said as he adjusted his glasses. “And your scan after that, too.”

“What? More blood samples? I’m going to become anemic if you keep poking me!” Aki snapped out. Part of him knew he was being a brat, but heck, this man deserved it.

“I am sorry, Aki-chan…” The man’s voice took on a wheedling tone as his eyes darkened with a desire Aki didn’t see. “But it’s not only blood this time…”

The boy stood looking at him in puzzlement until doctor’s eyes fixed on his lower half. He gasped, embarrassed. Why the fuck would they need his semen anyways? Why was this normal procedure? Yet the thought of _maybe this isn’t normal_ never crossed his naïve mind. Or, if it did, it was quickly shoved away.

“I can help you with that.” Maeda offered, holding a small plastic cup. Aki shuddered to see the lecherous gleam in his eyes.

“That won’t be necessary.” He answered edgily. “I can do that just fine.”

“Of course.” The man acted like he wasn’t disappointed. _Creep._

And after _that_ embarrassing fiasco, came the scan. _Finally._ He sighed in relief as a technician and a nurse came in to assist him. While Maeda was still mildly vulgar around others, it was definitely an upgrade over the full-blown pervert that came out when it was just him alone.

Just one last step and he would be out. Akihito sighed in relief as the technician got out needle, preparing the contrast material they would inject to highlight his blood vessels. _One last step…_

* * *

 The prick of the needle wasn’t as bad as he expected, and Aki relaxed slowly as the technician injected the liquid into his bloodstream. “Just a second and it should spread enough so that we can scan!” The man gave him a reassuring smile. It wasn’t hard to tell he did this a lot.

“So do I just uh, lie down?” Akihito asked. Odd, he felt a little woozy. Maybe that was a side effect. He lay back on the hard table thing as the technician wheeled him into the machine. Damn, he _really_ felt sleepy. He could hardly listen to the technician who was saying something about not moving very much during the scan, so that the images would be clear.

“Takaba-san?” The man sounded worried. “Are you listening?”

Worried hands shook him just a bit as his eyelids began to slide shut. A note of panic rang out inside of him. What? Was this not supposed to happen? He felt so sleepy, why?

A hand picked up his wrist, feeling around for his pulse, and then dropped it as if it had been stung.

“Nurse! Inform sensei, the patient is dying!” The technician spluttered, his voice rising several octaves.

 _Dying?_ No, it couldn’t be, right? How could it have happened? In vain, he clawed against the darkness that pressed against him, and to his horror discovered that breathing was hard. His chest labored for every breath and a chilly sweat covered his pale skin.

Dying was something Akihito never spent much time contemplating. He had figured it would happen as it was meant to, but not like this. It wasn’t supposed to be so soon, so scary. It wasn’t supposed to be _like this._

His final breath gave out a hollow sound as he felt his chest finally still, giving up.

He should’ve kissed the boy that night…

* * *

 “No.” The blonde man glared at Maeda. They stood, nose to nose, in a room near to the room where Akihito was getting ready to be led to his CT scan. “He is too risky to kill.”

“Nobody but him will do.” Maeda glared. “The body is ready, all it needs is an owner, and I calibrated it for this one. Besides, it’s not like you have a choice in the matter.”

“I have every choice.” The man lifted up his nose. “Arbatov-sama has made it _quite_ clear that he does not want any media suspicion.”

“Oh, do you?” Maeda gave a smirk.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The man’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What have you done?”

“Just a little insurance.” Maeda sing-songed.

Abruptly a nurse rushed into the room. Her hands shook and strands of hair had escaped from her neat bun as she panted with exertion, pale and shaking. “Sir…sir something has gone terribly wrong.”

“What?! Explain!”

“The patient,” Her eyes darted around and she lowered her voice furtively, as if anyone else could overhear the fateful words. “He’s dying.”

Maeda gave a smile. “Now I suppose it’s your job to tell Arbatov-sama about our lovely acquisition of a new prototype model, freshly dead. I’ll be able to extract his brain whole, too.”

The man gave him an ugly look. “How. How did you do this?”

“Ah ah, that would be telling. All you have to know is that the boy is dying for sure.” Maeda gave a shrug and strolled out of the room, heading to his sweet, sweet Adam, all ready to be reincarnated.

The man watched him leave with narrowed eyes. Maeda had won the round…but Cortex would win the war. “You saw nothing.” He murmured detachedly to the skittish nurse, who jerkily nodded. One did not go against Cortex, and every employee was well aware they may have to forsake the moral high ground for the advancement of science. Taking in her jittery countenance, though, he made a mental note to keep an _extra_ strict eye on her for a bit. You never knew when the weakest link would give.

* * *

 He woke up.

And he…wasn’t dead.

The first thing that registered was the bright, glaring white light above him, the cold clinical shine one instinctively associated with hospitals. _What…?_

He could remember every detail of dying. The horrible suffocating panic, the cold and anguished resignation as he felt his dying breath rattle out of his hollow almost-corpse. And yet here he was, alive and…he froze in shock.

He was not breathing.

No life-giving air flowed into his lungs; his entire body was as stiff as a corpse, his chest unmoving. And yet he was fine. More than fine. Without moving a single finger he somehow knew that his body was limber and strong, almost superhuman with its deceptive grace and brute strength. He was in better condition than he had ever been before. He sat up gingerly, shifting against the cold table beneath him as the door swung open. Maeda-sensei walked in, beady eyes gleaming with a fanatical light as he muttered to himself before he stopped in shock before the table.

“You…you’re awake Akihito-kun!” He rushed over, a joyful expression tinted with just a hint of lust on his face.

Instinctively, Aki scooted back against the table and then froze again as a dull tugging sensation emanated from the back of his neck and as rubber brushed against his back. His head whipped about, trying to catch sight of what it was, but could only catch a glimpse of the electrical cords whip by, connected to the back of his neck. _Cords? How? No…_

The words from what seemed to be so long ago rang clear in his head again. _They make people into androids…_

He gasped in a rattling breath, the first hit of air reaching his new chest. “What…what have you done to me?” He nearly spat out the words.

“I’ve made you reborn.” The man dismissed his words with a wave.

“Stop with the euphemisms and tell me what. You. Did.” He glared, flexing his hands experimentally.

“You have been placed in a technological wonder, Akihito-kun! An android body capable of housing a human brain. Distilled of course, human tissue wouldn’t survive long in a body like that.” Maeda gave a beaming smile, reaching out to touch the boy’s cheek. “Oh, and it’s such a perfect body too…”

Aki jerked back even further. “An…android? You’ve made me…a _machine_?! You _sicko_!” His fingers stiffened into a first as he felt the anger in him rush even more, rising up to engulf him. This man had _killed_ him and turned him into an android and was trying to molest him now? His pert lips curled back in a guttural snarl as he prepared to launch himself onto Maeda. It would be easy to knock the man out, he was stronger now. Much stronger.

But abruptly…it was gone. His anger vanished in a split second, replaced by calm emptiness. He stared in mute shock as his hands relaxed from their fists. “What…?”

“Hm, I knew the emotional locks would come in handy.” Maeda gave a sick little smile, patting the boy’s cheek and giving it a wet smooch. “Oh, my new Adam, you shall never taste of sorrow or despair. Only joy and calm.”

Akihito slumped back weakly, barely noticing when the man left to apparently inform Cortex of the prototype’s success. All he could do was stare at the ceiling, surrounded by the cold light that seemed to match his soul. He felt nothing, and somehow everything raged just below the surface, locked away by layers of code. It was as if he lived in a nightmare and was witnessing all from a third, detached, perspective.

If he could’ve felt despair, he would’ve drowned in it.

* * *

 “Oh, so you’ve succeeded?” Mikhail lounged in his desk chair. His blond hair seemed to gleam in the dusky light streaming in from the large windows, blue eyes fixed on the man before him, pinning the unfortunate scientist down.

“Yes, sir!” Maeda chattered excitedly. “He’s woken up just now and seems fully functional. Even the emotional locks haven’t failed; he’s not a threat at all. It’s perfect, an unprecedented success.”

“Oh, I see, that’s wonderful.” Mikhail gave a slow smile. “And have you of course recorded all the data and notes? It would be unfortunate for our top innovator to lose his notes after all.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve submitted all the documents. You _did_ promise to keep them under lock and key, didn’t you?” Maeda’s eyes narrowed. Stupidly brilliant though the man might be, he did seem to have enough room in his brain to be a _little_ suspicious.

“Of course, it’s all in your contract.” Mikhail gave a nod. “And now for your well-deserved reward.”

Maeda’s eyes brightened. “I want the boy. He’s perfect, I’ve earned him.”

“Yes, yes…” The man’s hand crept below the desk, quietly retrieving the tool he always had stowed away there.

“Oh, and maybe a better laboratory…” Maeda’s eyes were bright with greed.

Mikhail calmly lifted the gun and planted a bullet right in the middle of his forehead. For an almost comical moment, the man’s voice stopped as his eyes traveled up in utter shock. Without a noise, he crumpled to the ground like a doll that had had its strings cut.

Yuri walked in, surveying the scene. “What’s our next move?”

“Retrieve all the notes and have our scientists replicate the android. It should be easy; I’ve heard Maeda takes meticulous notes. He’s an unneeded liability now.” Mikhail waved a dismissive hand.

Men like Maeda were brilliant, but once they had served their purpose it would be wiser to dispose of them. They were fireworks, blazing in the sky for a split second before being quietly snuffed out. Cortex would advance even further now that the technology had been perfected.

“And the android?”

“Keep him in holding for now; we can compare our prototypes to him as a benchmark.”

The two men swept past the corpse on the ground lying in its own blood, discussing business, utterly uncaring of the murder that had just occurred. A pair of fools who had duped a third.

* * *

 “FUCK!” Papers went flying as Mikhail shoved them off his desk in a fit of rage.

“What’s the matter now?” Yuri grunted, kneeling to gather the papers. Mikhail’s tantrums were no new thing, though this was the worst one he had seen in a while.

“Maeda…the bastard _tricked_ us.” The man slumped forward, resting his hands against the smooth wood of the desk. “The notes he left…they were all dummies, fake copies with falsified numbers and no real substance. It’s bullshit, every page of it, and he’s _gone_ now.” His knuckles whitened in contained rage.

“So do we no longer know how to reproduce the android?” Yuri asked, watching the slow tic in the man’s jaw. Mikhail was prone to make hasty choices, but they seldom brought falls as great as this one.

“No. The only option we have left is to smash the damn thing open, but the engineers all say it’s too risky and the chances for success are close to nil. He got us, Uncle. He got us good.” Mikhail hissed out, running a hand through his hair.

“We can still recover this.” Yuri strode over, examining all the paperwork he had just gathered off the floor.

“How? Our genius scientist is gone and dead, we have no way of knowing exactly how he managed to do what he did, and the only thing he left us is one prototype. _One!_ ” Spittle flew from his lips as his cool, calm façade crumbled. All that they had worked for, gone in an instant because of some overly paranoid genius.

“Give the prototype to Takarada-san, he’s the best engineer we have who isn’t connected to anybody. He can analyze it. I’ve heard he quite enjoys solitude anyways.” Yuri slid forward another sheet of paper containing progress reports from other sectors, careful to keep his voice level and calm. Mikhail was unstable, which seldom boded well for his subordinates. “And meanwhile, our programmers are improving exponentially. It’s quite possible they’ll be capable of simulating the human soul without a human base anyways. Breathe, Mikhail, all is not lost.”

Mikhail exhaled a shuddering breath, fists clenching and unclenching. “Isolate the prototype and Takarada. We can’t have any of this news getting out to the public, it would be a scandal.”

“As you wish.” Yuri smiled.

* * *

 It was quite disconcerting, Aki decided, to have a person’s eyes focused this intensely on you. Unlike Maeda, however, Takarada-sensei’s eyes held no lust of desire of any sort. If anything, he was like a little boy, utterly amazed and intent of discovering the secrets of this new invention.

“I’d prefer it if you’d stop staring at me, it is very uncomfortable.” Calm. He must be calm and speak calmly. Already he could feel the parameters on his emotions, squeezing in like a vice as they compressed his emotions. Everything he felt was dulled, grayer.

“Hm, you don’t speak that realistically. Odd, they told me you were practically human!” The man frowned critically, leaning in closer.

“I would if I could!” Aki snapped, feeling a rush of heat before icy coldness spread through his body.

“Could?” Takarada strolled over to the interface Akihito was hooked up to. Scrolling through, he examined the words scrolling across the screen. “Wait…what’s this?” His eyebrows scrunched as he peered curiously at the screen. “You…you’ve had your emotions tampered with, haven’t you? There are several system guidelines here to control your brainwaves.”

“If you think. Maeda only said something about emotional parameters.” Aki bit his lip, waiting for the icy calm to recede.

For a second Takarada examined him, and then gave a sigh. “Just one second.” Plopping down in the desk chair, he pulled out a keyboard and began rapidly clacking. Aki stiffened in shock, looking at the desktop uneasily. That computer could do anything to him, could change how he thought or felt. “What are you doing?”

“Freeing you.”

Slowly, he could feel it, as if mental locks were clicking open, cuffs dropping off his individual emotions and thoughts. He could _feel_ , could think clearly. “Why did you do that?” He asked incredulously. “Are you even _allowed_ to?”

“What headquarters don’t know won’t hurt them.” The handsome scientist whirled around in his chair, looking intently at Akihito now. He broke out in a great smile as he beheld the new spark in the boy’s eyes. “Well, now that we’re both ourselves, why don’t we start introductions? Takaba Akihito, I am Takarada Koichi, the scientist assigned to examine the technological miracle that is you.”

“Assigned? Examine? Couldn’t you have made more of me?” Aki snorted sarcastically.

“Unfortunately, no, with Maeda-sensei gone, none of us have any clue how to recreate you. The data he submitted was all false, fabrications that don’t mean anything. Thus, we’ve been isolated so that I can thoroughly examine you.” Takarada-sensei seemed very serious, his hazel eyes fixated on Akihito.

Aki chose not to linger too much on the phrase “with Maeda-sensei gone”.

“Isolated?” There were no windows in the room, and it seemed identical to the first one he had woken up in to Akihito.

Walking over to a wall, Takarada flipped open a panel to show off a small window. Cerulean blue gleamed from outside, foamy peaks springing up and crashing down, all set in front of a bright blue sky. The ocean. “Where are we?” Akihito breathed out in horror. It was so beautiful, and yet so disconcerting, a far call from the dirty Tokyo he knew. This was not home.

“An island in the Pacific…” Takarada sounded regretful too, looking out at the ocean. “But now I suppose you understand what I mean. We will be together for a long, long time.”

They sat in the room in compatible silence. “Hey new roomie.” Aki cracked a smile, turning to look at the scientist directly.

“Hey.” Takarada smiled back. “Let’s be friends.”

“Let’s.” Aki agreed, staring out to where the ocean met the horizon.

* * *

 Tests. Every day, nonstop tests. Tests designed to map out every ability known to mankind. It was a boring existence, with little else to do. It was just them two on the island, with a supply boat that came every week to drop off food and necessities. Other than that, it was utter solitude.

The solitude, however, did make some things quite clear. First, Takarada was no slacker, and would work his proper hours even without surveillance, and thus Akihito had to suffer along with him too. Man, even as an android it was still 8-5 for him, huh? And secondly…the man was an abysmal chef. It had only taken one look at the charred mess of eggs to realize that.

Now, he seemed more maid than science experiment, fixing the man’s meals three times a day, if only for fear that one day the man would give himself awful food poisoning. He was, after all, a fragile human, not blessed with the strong body Akihito had. And honestly, only he had the unique talent of simultaneously charring and undercooking a slab of meat.

So they lived on in harmony, lab rat and tester. Admittedly, not much progress was made, since apparently the black box inside was perfectly nondescript and short of breaking it open there would never be a way to comprehend it, and honestly even then it wasn’t a sure thing.

Day after day it was more of the same. Wake up, cook. Be examined, have his programming tinkered with, be maintained. Have some fun, play a video game with Takarada. Cook again. Sleep. He wanted out, and yet he didn’t. He missed his family, wanted to see his friends, but he knew he couldn’t. He wasn’t human anymore, he had kept his consciousness, but with a kick of mechanical calm and immortality to boot. He couldn’t laugh with Kou anymore, and couldn’t go to kiss that golden-eyed boy. That part of his life was over, and he was a patchwork of contradictions now, sewn together by Maeda.

Days turned to weeks which turned to months and after that, years. And the scientist lived there and aged, unable to leave for fear of the company, accompanied by the android. They were friends, steeped in solitude for many years. It wasn’t anything worthy of the soaring science fiction novels of the day. There were no grand unveilings, no unbelievable discoveries. Just an old, hermit-like scientist, a genius who had never fit in with the normal populace, tinkering with androids and making almost-Akis, his new pastime.

In time, they learned of the truth in bits and fragments, drifting by on the careless words of the workers who brought their food. The new androids had been perfected and were now sold products. Perfectly naturalistic, without needing the slightest bit of human DNA. The invention known as Takaba Akihito was already outdated.

* * *

  _It was just a fragment of memory, so faint and foggy he could’ve just dreamed about it, making it up like a fanciful daydream. He had lived so many years that it was hard to separate his fantasies with his real memories, and though he loathed admitting it, he had most likely romanticized every aspect about his human life._

_Akihito wasn’t the type of boy who loved to studying or to waste away in a classroom. He liked to read, sure, but didn’t enjoy doing math or chemistry nearly as much, to his parents’ despair._

_That morning he had been especially lazy, dragging himself to school with plodding steps, more packhorse than teen. His best motivation was getting to see the black haired, golden eyed boy. Next year his crush would graduate and Akihito didn’t want to imagine how empty it would feel to walk around a school devoid of the boy’s powerful presence._

_He gave a sigh. Part of him knew he should go to math, but on a whim he went to the rooftop to be alone with his depressing thoughts, saturated with what-ifs. What if he was more handsome? More lovable? Would he have been able to fulfill his love life more easily?_

_But the roof wasn’t empty as he thought. Before he turned the corner, he could already hear two voices, one feminine and one masculine, and he turned to leave, quite chagrined about what he might’ve caught sight of, when he spotted that familiar silhouette._ He _was there…and with a girl no less._

_Akihito felt his heart clench in his chest and was about to turn away when sharp golden eyes glanced at him and a smirk blossomed in those sinful lips. A smirk that never failed to melt Aki on the spot._

_“Thank you.” The taller boy said to the girl, holding a love letter in her shaking hands. “But I’m sorry…I am in love with another person.” His eyes locked onto Akihito baby blues and winked. It was suddenly so hard to breath._

He didn’t mean it. _Akihito thought to himself feverishly, desperately suppressing the traitorous bud of hope inside._ He’s just flirting.

 _Even if the older boy was just joking around, Akihito wanted to giggle euphorically and announce the grand news to the whole world_. He flirted with me, he knows that I exist.

_He left the roof, tripping on his feet, rosy cheeks and adorable smile in his lips.  Life was good._

* * *

 It had been a long time since he had had a memory so vivid. Aki stared down at his bare feet, absentmindedly curling and uncurling his pale toes.

“What’s on your mind today? You seem more distracted than normal.” The slow clack of a cane against the floor heralded Takarada’s arrival. It was just another small reminder of how much time had passed, how many years they had lived together and been best friends on this island. But Takarada’s body aged, while Akihito’s was still as beautiful as it had been the day he woke up in Maeda’s lab. Ever muscle, every joint, was as limber and powerful as it had ever been.

But even if he could not age, Aki _could_ feel tired. The boy he had loved so many years ago was most likely a doddering senior by now, with a family. Heck, maybe he had died, if he was unlucky. Kou and Takato would be old too. Were they still together? He hoped so; someone deserved happiness in all of this. He hadn’t seen them ever again after that night.

“Can I ask you a favor?” He turned to the old man. “Not as a subject, or a creation, but as a friend.” His blue eyes, older than suited his young face, stared into the man’s own watery hazel,

Takarada’s countenance softened. “Of course, Akihito. We _are_ friends after all, and what shall old men do if they cannot even rely on each other?”

“Please…send me back to Tokyo.”

The request hung in the air between them. “Have you wearied of life?” Takarada said it as though he had always been expecting it, the perceptive bastard.

Aki gave a dry chuckle. “You can think of it that way too. I just figured that it’s almost my time, and that I’ve lived long enough. Takaba Akihito, if he had never gone through all of this, would have wanted this, I think.”

Takarada stared at him sadly, eyes set deeply under a wrinkled brow. “Did you ever have any regrets?”

All he could imagine was that one lost kiss, those smoldering golden eyes. Yet even that memory had faded with time, like old black and white film. “I did, but so does any person. Now, I just want to end my life where it started. If I’m being honest, this entire time, it feels as if I’ve lived a strange dream, and it’s time to wake up.”

Takarada breathed out deeply. “I will make it happen.”

And somehow, sealing his death was as easy as that. He was going back home, to where it had all begun.

* * *

 They took him away, after that, from the island. Careless hands shoved him into a boat and later into a helicopter as they transported the best kept secret of Cortex, the first android. He remembered glancing back to see a lone figure standing on beaches shining with golden sand, waving him goodbye, and hoping that somebody else would be sent to care for Takarada. Even after so many decades, his cooking could still be a biological weapon.

Tokyo had changed, in the years he had been gone. The clean places had only gotten cleaner, the dirty places dirtier. From above it looked like a rose, blooming pure white in the center with rotting black petals on the edges. And yet it was still home, and it would be his grave. A quiet place to die for an unneeded invention.

They took him to a sector they called The Piles, walking him through a veritable sea of abandoned robots and computer parts, waves of black silicon coming up to Akihito’s ankles, rustling and gleaming beneath the moonlight. Finally, they reached the place, far away from anywhere anyone would visit, in a darkened corner. A few grunts and gestures were all he needed to get the general idea. Sitting down, he allowed them to silently cover him with heaps of silicon, disguising him as a piece of trash that had always been there. One man lifted up his dainty foot and with a _bzzt_ , a _5_ and C smoldered on his foot. It was just another clue to throw any curious humans off the trail. The last nail in the coffin that would bury the ultimate secret. Now he was no different from any other android, tagged dutifully and useless in his old age.

It had been a lot easier than he had thought it would be, Aki mused later, when he had been left by the men, the act of dying. Really, it was just like Cortex to go through such things with little to no fanfare.

And now all there was to do was wait. He would sleep, and sleep, his internal mechanisms winding down bit by bit, rusting and decaying until he really was just a conglomeration of parts, and Takaba Akihito was put to rest at last.

As his eyes fluttered shut, he pretended that the cool brush of silicon against his cheek was the warm press of a pair of lips.

* * *

 He slept there for many, many years. The seasons rolled by, one after another, and he let himself lay there. Gradually, malfunctioning parts accumulated. Eventually, he was no longer able to feel his arms or legs and became immobile as if he were a true corpse. Time seemed meaningless and he floated in a sea of black--literally and figuratively--with hardly a thought flitting across his mind.

It was a beautiful spring morning when he died. He remembered in flickering pixels those sakura petals from god knows where drifting across the sky. They seemed a miracle to his glitched brain, blushing pink against the smog-filled sky. One floated down, landing on his nose with a whimsical charm. For a second, he looked at it as best as he could, through his half-broken visual sensors, before his vision flickered and finally went dark.

* * *

It was a hot summer day when he was reborn.

* * *

 For a few seconds his world was that lamp on the ceiling, beaming down on him. He couldn’t think, remember or worry. He just kept staring at it, like an empty shell. After his vision finally adjusted to the bright light, biosynced pupils tightening, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

That was when he realized that he really did not need to breathe. It was an artificial body after all; he neither possessed lungs nor needed them. Rather, a network of sensors, cables, and circuits ran through his body and supplied him with all he needed. He had spent many a day being lectured on his own circuitry by Takarada to the point where he probably would’ve been able to do a half decent job rewiring himself. _Takarada_! In a flash, his precious memories and moments that he had tried to forget in vain flowed in, a powerful wave sweeping past the dam of his mental blocks. Every detail, good or bad, joyful or sorrowful sat in his head, intact once more. He _remembered_.

Scenes flickered past his head like a reel, now colored with vivid emotion. The last time he saw his friends, his last thought from his human life, the last words he heard from his mother, Maeda-sensei's dirty hands, the unfunny joke about Cortex stealing naughty kids to turn them into robots, Takarada's sweet smile and all his failed culinary escapades, the rush of freedom as the emotional shackles had been removed...all of the information was stocked in the back of his mind, a gigantic library, holding all of his memories, and he could summarize each and every book that filled the old shelves. So many memories, all in such clarity. And somehow, after all of it, he had still lived. The thought filled him with bitterness rather than joy.

Why, of all people, was he the only one who could never die? Didn’t someone like him deserve some peace? Was he doomed to relive those memories over and over in his mind? The technology that was supposedly made to gift him with eternal life, a perpetual Adam, had locked him in a corrupted Eden, a paradise built by a man who understood nothing but his own delusions.

Akihito frowned, taking in the unfamiliar ceiling and the little buzz of machines and mechanisms around him. In his mental library, a new volume was created as his mechanical brain prepared to record this new chapter of his life. He turned his head just a little bit. Beside him were two men. When he noticed the old white lab coat, a strong sense of déjà vu struck him and he wondered hysterically if this was a nightmare. All he could remember was that cold lab and Maeda.

_Not again..._

He heard a gasp and the smaller of the two men stepped back, Akihito looked at them with a slight annoyed gaze, forcing himself to calm down and let his eyes wander aimlessly, until they met beautiful gold. The same burning, smoldering gold he had been looking for all his life. It wasn’t possible.

Behind his artificial eyes he could see a bewildering flow of images and sounds, the voice of his old crush, those golden eyes and teasing smirk. Somehow, impossibly, everything was in its perfect place, a mirror image to the boy he had adored in his mind for his decades of silent love.

He couldn’t remember his name, but that didn't matter, Akihito KNEW it was _him_. The man who stood by him was what the boy from so long ago would’ve looked like, grown up. And though  
Aki had no idea how it was possible, it was true.

Perhaps the years and years in The Piles _had_ done their job, and he was going mad as the rust crept up his wires and corrupted his sensors. Perhaps God had finally taken pity on his poor hybridized self and offered him his own version of heaven. But none of that mattered in the end. The only thing he was sure of was that the man looking at him with fascinated golden eyes was the boy he once had loved to death, the one he had never kissed, and the one who haunted his dreams after he had lost the ability to dream.

But those golden eyes, that boyish, sarcastic smirk…he would never be greeted by them again. His mental clock and cold built in logic informed him that since he had died, decades and decades had passed. There was little chance of his first love even being alive, much less young and strong like this man. It was, simply put, impossible. Gazing into those identical golden eyes, he felt a deep nostalgia. If he could, he would’ve sold his heart of flesh and metal to go back in time to be with that boy once more. And yet, his soul still yelled that this _was_ the boy, against all odds.

Akihito parted his perfect pink lips, staring at the man. There was so much to ask, so much to say and he felt so very tiny and silly. The half formed phrases bounced around his head.

 _‘How did you find me?’_ , ‘ _Do you remember me?’_ , ‘ _Can you forgive me?’,_ and _‘Did you know? I've always loved you with all I had.’._

That memory, so inherent it was already part of him, closer than his name, resounded inside. The memory of that bittersweet night brought back to him the words that trailed his every step: _Don’t leave_.

He wasn’t going to leave. After so many years, regrets, and thoughts, he was never going to leave his side again. It mattered not if this was reality or an illusion, he would take either with no qualms.

He reached out, lifting himself up, and wrapped his arms around that strong neck, whispering into the man’s ear, “I am so sorry…”

The man stiffened for a second in amazement. Whatever he had been expecting, this had not been it.

Akihito sobbed harder, misunderstanding the man’s reaction. He could shed no tears, but he still buried his face in the warm crook of the man’s neck, drawing some small comfort from the very human warmth there. _I must seem like a freak or monster...is he afraid?_   _He can’t even remember me._ _No...my memory of him isn’t even from this life, there are no memories for him to recall._

Then, strong arms returned his embrace as the man patted his hair. A soothing voice, even deeper than the boy’s had been, caressed his ears. “It's okay kitten, I got you.” The man didn’t understand, that much was obvious, but he was still comforting Aki. The boy gave a hiccupping giggle. How sweet and unlike the man.

He had waited for such a long time, an unbelievably long time, in fact. Finally, he wasn't alone anymore, his sweet memories hadn’t betrayed him...the person he loved for so long, more than life itself, was here. He breathed in deeply, looking into those confused, handsome golden eyes, and made the promise he should’ve made a long time ago.

“I promise, I will never leave you again…”

Large hands cupped his cheeks and tilted his head up. It was almost difficult, after all these years, to gaze upon the sheer masculine beauty of the man, but Aki tried his best.

“Is that a promise?” The man smiled at him. He didn’t understand, not really. But maybe that was a blessing in disguise, to have at least one of them with a clean slate. Aki carried enough memories for the both of them.

Akihito nodded, glowing with childlike excitement. And for the first time since that ball, several decades ago, he smiled a true smile.

He was finally awake.

**Author's Note:**

> [A Bad Dream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwgjHU-EE9M=)   
> 


End file.
